2.25.2009

So I mentioned before that Hotmail changed their design again which, I suppose, would have been fine if this new design hadn't put me through tests to prove that I really, really wanted to email my friends, coworkers, and talk radio hosts my thoughts on the latest iteration of the bank bailout and Kate Winslet's Oscar dress.

Of course I want to email those people. I find the hesitancy to move toward nationalization understandable but short-sighted and her dress to have been...um, green, I think.

So it's time to change. From now on you can reach me at the email address to the right (or, if it's easier, 'adamwpeterson [at] gmail [dot] com'). I've had it for years, but I only used it for document backup. I think I once had vague privacy concerns about gmail, but, as with so many things, I no longer care. At this point I'm actually hoping advertisers look into my information. Maybe that will finally prompt them to release the 1992 Hector Elizondo vehicle There Goes the Neighborhood on Blu-ray. Certainly the letters I was sending weren't doing the trick.

It occurs to me that some of you don't even have my "real" email address as I've been too embarrassed to give it out for the last few years. You should be glad. It would only make you feel sorry for me. I won't repeat it here, but let's just say it was named when:

A) I was 15B) My friends and I were into a certain pirate video gameC) Someone had already claimed the correct spelling of the word I wantedD) Misspelling things for video game purposes was cool

If you're thinking my old email address was "pyrat@hotmail.com," you're wrong. Sadly, you're not that wrong.

It was actually an account I started right when we moved from Nebraska to Kansas so I could keep up with friends (before that we all used a local message board/network thing called Freenet). Here's my oldest email, from August 1998, from my friend Chris:

come to my party on the 22 of this month alright. i'll ceck and see if I can come down this weekend and check out the house

Sadly, Chris still can't spell 'check' right in consecutive uses. It's actually a very common problem. Our best doctors are working on it.

I think I"m a pimp, and you think I'm a pimp and so does everyone else. he he he. Anywho, yeah chris drives the taurus around. He actually looks kind of dumb driving it. It just looks stupid.

Ryan now teaches history. He married his high school sweetheart. When his wife is out of town he wants to come over and play old Sega games with me and drink vodka in orange soda. The last time we played tennis both of us were a lot better than we'd ever been before and couldn't figure out why. The last time we talked Ryan and I explained our 401k options to each other.

Here's how Nicholas Sparks would end this post:

I held onto that old email address as if I could hold onto the past from before my friends scattered across the country, before the distance between us became more permanent. It is a distance that appears easily conquered--there are no parents to ask for permission, flights leave every hour--yet it is a distance we can never fully close again. We might visit but only visit. We might again find ourselves driving family sedans toward each other, cars no longer handed down from parents but could, in time, be handed down to our own children. We might forget each other's addresses once the old ones are gone. I do hope Missy comes out of her coma so that I might tell her how much I love her and ask her forgiveness for the death of her father.

Okay, so I've never read any Nicholas Sparks. I assume I'm in the ballpark.